General Tips

So, you’re ready to get your first job? How does your resume look? You don’t have a resume? This is a common scenario for teens looking to get their first job. What do you even put on a resume when you haven’t worked before, right? You’re about to learn how to quickly set up your first resume to impress employers and set yourself apart from the crowd so you can get the job you really want.

You may not be completely clear on what you’re passionate about and what you want to do with your life, yet you have to compete with hundreds and thousands other students in the entry job market. The last thing you should do is follow a career path just because you think it’s what you want, without really exploring your options first.

But, you still need a job, so you still need to get your foot in the door. What are the best ways students can do this?

Teens that are looking for work in the 21st century have got their work cut out for them. Not only is the entire world recovering from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, but jobs that are available to teenagers seem fewer and farther between. This is in part because so many adults that used to work forty hours a week have settled for part-time positions that used to be held primarily by teenage workers, making job searches more competitive for teenagers.

Your Social Security Number, or SSN for short, is a nine-digit number that is issued to all United States citizens by the Social Security Administration. When your SSN is protected and kept private, it can provide you with a wealth of government benefits in the future, namely a supplement to your retirement. But when your SSN is compromised, stolen, or misused, it can cause mountains of trouble that can leave your credit ruined and your life in a mess.

Okay, so you’ve decided that you want to find a job. Maybe you’re looking for work to tie you over for the summer break, or something that you can do after school and on the weekends. Whatever it is that you’ve got in mind, the real question you’ve got to ask yourself is, “Where do I start?”

If you’re a working teenager, then odds are the government is going to want their share of your earnings. While this doesn’t always seem fair, it’s certainly a part of having a job in the 21st century. Your federal government is the last group of people that you want on your case, especially when they start demanding their portion of your earnings, so it’s crucial that you fully understand the tax implications that come with making money in your country today.

As parents, guiding our teenagers and students towards a part-time job can be a pretty easy task. Usually it’s just a matter of calling up a friend that owns a local deli or shop, or even bringing home a couple of applications from local restaurants. But helping our kids plan for a long-term career can be a rather intimidating task; after all, it’s only their lives that we’re talking about here. So how exactly can parents make sure that they’re guiding their kids in the right direction?

Why Students and Teenage Workers Should Find a Mentor and Follow a Mentorship Program?

Over the course of our young adult lives we often find ourselves learning things the hard way. Some teens have a carefree attitude towards giving out their Social Security Numbers, only to become victims of identity fraud. Others don’t realize how important it is to apply to several colleges instead of a single one, only to get rejected by a choice school without a secondary college to fall back on.

All education is self-education. Period. It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in a college classroom or a coffee shop. We don’t learn anything we don’t want to learn.

Those people who take the time and initiative to pursue knowledge on their own are the only ones who earn a real education in this world.

Take a look at any widely acclaimed scholar, entrepreneur or historical figure you can think of. Formal education or not, you’ll find that he or she is a product of continuous self-education.

If you’re interested in learning something new, this article is for you. Broken down by subject and/or category, here are several top-notch self-education resources I have bookmarked online over the past few years.

Note that some of the sources overlap between various subjects of education. Therefore, each has been placed under a specific subject based on the majority focus of the source’s content.

AT&T and Udacity, the online education company founded by the Stanford professor and former Google engineering whiz Sebastian Thrun, announced something meant to be very small: the “NanoDegree.”

At first blush, it doesn’t appear like much. For $200 a month, it is intended to teach anyone with a mastery of high school math the kind of basic programming skills needed to qualify for an entry-level position at AT&T as a data analyst, iOS applications designer or the like.

Yet this most basic of efforts may offer more than simply adding an online twist to vocational training. It may finally offer a reasonable shot at harnessing the web to provide effective schooling to the many young Americans for whom college has become a distant, unaffordable dream.